Cable News Ratings: Megyn Kelly Tops Demo in November

It was a busy November for cable news networks, as coverage of the Midterm Elections and the unrest in Ferguson, Mo. dominated the headlines.

While Fox News again outpaced its rivals MSNBC and CNN in every measure, there was a notable shift atop FNC’s ranks. For the first time since moving to primetime last year, Megyn Kelly’s The Kelly File out-rated her lead in The O’Reilly Factor in the adults 25-54 news demo for an entire month, with 546,000 viewers to O’Reilly’s 521,000. O’Reilly retained its lead among total viewers however, with 3 million compared to Kelly’s 2.8 million. Both O'Reilly and Kelly had their highest monthly viewership in both measures in November.

The amount of breaking news in the month also helped propel CNN to huge gains from a year ago, especially in the news demo.

Compared to last November, CNN was up 36% in primetime among total viewers (653,000) and up 72% in the demo (263,000). Fox News was mostly unchanged from a year ago among total viewers (2.08 million); however the network rose 20% in the demo (407,000). MSNBC continued its struggles, as the third-place net was the only one to be down from last year, falling 6% among total viewers (605,000) and 8% in the demo (174,000).